


Changing Spots

by Feytwilight



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Already regretting everything, Angst, Cruella De Vil was originally a Dalmatian, F/M, Poor Rumple!, Queens of Darkness, Rumbelle - Freeform, yeah i know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:18:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2797616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feytwilight/pseuds/Feytwilight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fate, a spinner herself, must be laughing at him.  The thought sent a familiar heady rush of anger shivering through his veins.  No, he was Rumplestiltskin, he thought with an inner trilling giggle, and Fate be dammed, this would not be his end!  Continuing on from 4x12 during the six weeks and piling on the angst, as if there wasn't enough...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing Spots

Rumplestiltskin sat crumpled on the cold wet pavement, his leg bent awkwardly, painfully beneath him, as his eyes stared hopelessly at the long empty stretch of fogged road before him. He didn’t know if Belle was still there, just a scant few feet away but further apart than they had ever been. Was she still watching him, finally seeing just how pathetic her husband really was?  Milah had realized that fact far sooner. Was she listening to his panicked breaths, his wordless pleas?  Or had she left long ago, already trying to forget that he had ever even existed. He looked down at his hands limp, pale, weak and tried not to hug himself. He couldn’t hate her for what she had done to him, he couldn’t even blame her, it was bound to happen eventually, somewhere deep inside he had always known that.  Belle had finally learned what he really was, not just a cowardly spinner, not even just a monstrous beast, but dust, worthless meaningless dust. Belle had finally lost her rose tinted lenses.

Everything had gone so very wrong so very quickly.  All that he had ever wanted had been within his grasp, and he had failed in the worst possible of ways.  His dark shriveled heart _ached_ , bled from his wife’s betrayal, though he shied away from calling it that even within the vaults of his own mind, it was he who had betrayed her, building their marriage on lies. He was almost happy that Bae had died, had not lived to see him like this, to see how far he had fallen. He’d never ripped his heart out of his own chest mainly because he had seen what that had done to Cora, but also because he was afraid of what he would see if he did.  If he had still had that ability he would have been sorely tempted to use it now.  Nothing had ever hurt as much as this, even loosing Bae.  Causing Belle such utter misery, feeling her disdain and disgust, seeing her even refuse to look at him as she banished him to his worst nightmare, alone. The pain of it all was far too much to bear. Villains don’t get happy endings; he’d always known that.  But Belle was not a villain, she was as opposite a villain as it could be, surely she deserved happiness, but just being near him had tainted her.  She’d even said as much.  Now he was powerless, an outcast, unclean, and unwanted, and he bleakly wondered what there was left to live for. 

 

>>><<< 

 

Belle was barely a foot away from Rumple.  She sat on her knees leaning desperately towards her untrue love, watching his anguish and wishing beyond words that she could comfort him. But he didn’t want her comfort; not really, all Rumplestiltskin wanted was what power could give to him. He’d proven over and over again that magic was his one true love and she; well she apparently couldn’t compete with that and never could.  She was a fool and always had been.  Everyone had told her this would happen, even Rumple himself, and still she felt blindsided from his betrayal of her.  He’d lied to her, built their entire marriage on lie after lie after lie. And the gauntlet proved he’d been deceiving her from the very beginning.  All the signs had been there, and there were so very many of them now that she thought to look, and still she had purposefully ignored all of them, choosing to be blissful in her ignorance, and this, of course, is where it led. The Kris dagger lay where it had fallen from her weakened grasp on the ground beside her, shinning guiltily in the dark, Rumple’s name still etched starkly upon it.  She’d never been enough for him, no matter how hard she had tried, Rumple would always make wrong choices, choices that led away from her, away from their love, away from all that was good, right, and decent. She wanted to hate him, to walk away, run as far and fast as she could from all this pain, all this sorrow. But somehow for some reason she just couldn’t leave him alone, even though he didn’t even know if she was there or not. She didn’t have it in her to leave him to suffer alone.  Though she was certain sound only traveled from Rumple’s side of the magical veil, she still tried to muffle her broken sobs with her hands.

 

>>><<< 

 

Fate, a spinner herself; must be laughing at him.  The thought sent a familiar heady rush of anger shivering through his veins.  No, he could still salvage something. Baelfire had traded his own life for his, and there was no way he was going to let his son’s sacrifice be for naught. He was Rumplestiltskin, and Fate be dammed, this would not be the ending of him!

It was still dark by the time he had gathered enough courage to move.  He managed to climb to his feet, balancing precariously, and tried to limp towards the woods to the left of him.  He fell painfully after two shuffling steps, bruising his elbow and what was left of his pride still further.  He truly hoped Belle was not watching this.

 

>>><<< 

 

Belle watched as her husband’s eyes lit with a dimmed version of their usual fire as he forced himself to his feet.  She winced when Rumple fell, restraining herself from going to him. She knew she could join him, that it was a possibility.  There would be no power to compete with in the Land Without Magic; it would be just her and him. The thought was almost enough to make her run to him.  But Rumple had already made it very clear what she meant to him and it was not enough.  She would not leave her life in Storybrooke to be with him, even though some part of her wanted to, it was the wrong part of her she knew, the blind and stupid part of her.  She stuffed that piece of her heart in a steel box in her mind and refused to even acknowledge it as she watched Rumple crawl painfully to the woods and pick out a long stick to use.  She watched as he used it to slowly limp away down the road.  She even watched as he looked behind himself one last time as if trying to catch her eyes before he faced forward again and walked out of her sight and her life forever. She had long since run out of tears but she couldn’t stop crying.


End file.
